As known, resource management consists of efficiently and effectively identifying, tracking, and utilizing a business' resources. Businesses have implemented resource management plans to help track and allocate different types of resources, including but not limited to, financial, inventory, production, technology, and human resources. One particularly important resource is human resources.
Human resource management consists of allocating human hours or percentages of time to projects and/or business units. Through human resource management, a business may maximize the use of personnel to improve efficiency and reduce costs by identifying projects, the technical needs of those projects, staffing needs, staffing availability, and staffing allocation to provide efficient and effective deployment of a business' personnel resources. It is not enough that the resources are allocated to the appropriate projects, but they must be allocated in the proper amount and for the proper duration of time. Human resource management includes estimating and deploying the time of each resource to specific projects. Both estimating and deploying resources are essential components of a comprehensive resource management plan to execute and monitor a project successfully. There are resource management software tools available that automate and assist the process of resource allocation to projects. These products are often too narrowly tailored to provide the proper functionality and security, or too complex and constrained to provide cost-effective and beneficial resource management. Often, resource managers are faced with having to determine the resource allocations, while also defining the project requirements and timetables.
It is desirable to develop a system and associated method for using the system that makes resource planning and management easy, intuitive, and cost-effective for resource managers or other users.